Elaine Pagels describes the early history of the church and the political fight over the structure of the church in books like The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond Belief. She says that during the first couple of centuries after Jesus’ death, the Christian faith spread like wildfire throughout the Roman Empire because of Roman persecution. People watched Christians look lions in the eye and keep on singing. The wonder wasn’t that their god saved them—He didn’t—but the singing.
In the face of that persecution, an organizing structure was necessary to keep the early followers of Jesus from being hunted to extinction; they needed to expand very quickly. Those who believed in an immanent authority, the Gnostics, ultimately lost the fight to those who put in place a dogmatic structure that people could simply affirm in order to become part of the church. The authoritarians wrote the Creeds that churchgoers still recite. They established the canon of four gospels. Believe this and you’re in, no special grace need be demonstrated.
Not surprisingly, they rejected books written by the Gnostics, including the Gospel According to Thomas, one of the original twelve. Prior to this official expulsion, so-called Thomas Christians were extremely powerful. It is even likely that Thomas was “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” But Thomas was the victim of a smear campaign. His rival, John, who probably never knew Jesus, is the one who came up with the epithet “doubting” and stuck it on Thomas.
Isn’t that still the rap on liberals? That we only believe in what we can see and touch and understand? That we are, as a result, indecisive and incapable of real loyalty? That, when you get right down to it, liberals, whose standards are always shifting, lily-livered moral relativists, cannot be trusted?
The Book of Thomas was not only expelled from the canon but ordered destroyed. Some Thomas priests in Egypt, acting, naturally, on their own consciences, buried these banned books in earthen jars in the desert, where they turned up again in the middle of the last century at a place called Nag Hammadi. Letters in a bottle at the bottom of a Dead Sea.
These preserved letters from the past remind us that the lifeblood of any real religion, as of secular humanism, is not dogma, with its easy absolutes and certainties, but a search for the truth in a life that is fragile, painful, and temporary. That takes guts.
Cindy Sheehan wrote recently: “I know why some people kill themselves: it is the lack of hope.” When she decided she couldn’t do that to her other children, she started to speak out against the war and found that her actions created the hope she needed. She’s glad to be alive again. “Living with the hope that our world will one day exist in a paradigm of peace, love, and non-violent conflict resolution is a very good way to exist.”
Thomas put it this way: “If you do not bring forth what is within you, it will destroy you, but if you do bring forth what is within you, it will save you.” Time to trust ourselves.
Patricia Goldsmith is a member of Long Island Media Watch, a grassroots free media and democracy watchdog group. She can be reached at plgoldsmith@optonline.net.
One, only one major newspaper must become a constant trumpet against Bush. It has to comment on anything he does in a neagtive way. It has to tear him apart. It has to disclose everything. Appeal to Soros for money ot open such trumpet. Call it ' Trumpet for Justice" Open it with the editorial to impeach the bastard and recall the Congress.
In order to win the Struggle has to start. Career Journalism has a weakness: it is boring. Make your Trumpet funny, fiery and pointy and THEY WILL COME!
by
Mark Sashine (54 articles, 19 quicklinks, 251 diaries, 3598 comments)
on Monday, October 17, 2005 at 8:14:51 AM
1 comments
How would you rate this?
You must be logged in (if signed up) to do ratings.
It's free to signup! And easy. And takes just a minute or two....
Must Read (
Well Said (
News (
Touching (
Funny (
Supported (
Interesting (
Inspiring (
Valuable (
